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Class _.. 

Book 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN WHO 

FELL IN GALLANT FIGHT DEFENDING A JUST 

AND AN HONOURABLE CAUSE ON THE 

. SHORES AND SLOPES OF 

GALLIPOLI 



REFLECTIONS ON 
THE WAR 



REFLECTIONS ON 
THE WAR 



BY 

G. C. HENDERSON, M.A. ( cw) 
ii 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE 



ADELAIDE: G. HASSELL & SON 
1916 






i 



<=£/£%>£$& 



PREFACE 



During the past nine months I have delivered lectures 
on the war in Adelaide and thirty of the country towns 
in South Australia. The arrangements of a business 
character were carried out willingly and efficiently by 
Mr. C. R. Hodge, who acted in co-operation with the 
local committees of the University Extension movement. 
Of the courtesy and kindliness shown me in the country 
districts I have very pleasing memories, and I would 
like to express my thanks to the kind folk who enter- 
tained me, and also to those who worked so assiduously 
in many of the centres to make the lectures a success. 
Upwards of 10,000 people did me the honour to come 
and listen to what I had to say, and some of them have 
expressed the wish that the lectures on The Chief Responsi- 
bility for the War, British and German Imperialism, and 
The War and Civilization, might be published in book 
form. Though I have said nothing that has not been 
said many a time, I have decided to comply with their 
wish. I believe that the war in which Australia and 
the Empire are engaged is a just and an honourable 
war ; and I would fain put my reasons for thinking so 
before as many of my fellow-countrymen as may be. 
But besides that, the publication of these reflections on 
the war gives me another opportunity of adding to the 
amount I have already been instrumental in raising for 
the relief of the stricken Belgians. They have proved 
themselves to be brave men and women, who love 



6 PREFACE 

freedom and honour more than material aggrandisement. 
Nobly have they fought and suffered, not only for them- 
selves, but also for us. Any profits that may come to 
me from the sale of this little book shall be devoted, as 
the proceeds of my lectures were, to the Belgian Relief 
Fund. 

I am grateful to Professor W. Mitchell and Mr. F. W. 
Eardley for reading through and emending my manuscript. 

University of Adelaide, 
South Australia. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 

Chapter I. The White Books 

The publication of the British and German White 
Boo\s\ the one an historical document, the other a law- 
yer's brief. Suppression of the correspondence between 
Germany and Austria. Germany incurs grave responsi- 
bility (i) by rejecting Sir Edward Grey's proposal for a 
conference; reasons why the proposal was both practical 
and fair; (2) for sending a peremptory ultimatum to 
Russia on July 3 1 when Vienna and St. Petersburg were " in 
conversation " on the terms of the Austrian note to Servia. 
Was Germany working for war while professing peace ? 
The suppressed correspondence would help to elucidate 
this question. Italy remained neutral; the reason given 
by the Marquis di San Giuliano. 

Chapter II. The Neutrality and Independence 
of Belgium 

Great Britain went to war to defend the neutrality and 
independence of Belgium. History of the neutrality and 
independence of Belgium: the Treaty of London, 1839; 
the Treaty of 1870; the Convention of 1907; the 
Kaiser's promise in October, 1910; Herr von Jagow's 
promise in the Reichstag in April, 191 3. "Infamous 



8 CONTENTS 

proposals" by Germany to Great Britain. Importance 
of the conversation between Sir Edward Goschen and 
the German Chancellor on August 4. Reasons why 
Great Britain could not afford to break her plighted 
word. Scraps of paper, and the usages of civilization. 
Honour a fundamental consideration in the business and 
finance of great nations. Difference between the psycho- 
logical climate of Potsdam and Westminster. 

Chapter III. Military Dynamic in Germany 

The influence of Prussia on Germany since 1870. 
The " blood and iron" policy of Bismarck. The "speed- 
ing up" of the army since 1870 and the navy since 
1899. Military and naval strength of Germany on the 
outbreak of the war. The worship of force and the reli- 
gion of valour. The ascendancy of the " German spirit " 
and the "will to conquer". 

PART II 
BRITISH AND GERMAN IMPERIALISM 

Chapter IV. Germany's Imperial Ambitions 

Bismarck's observations on the merits and defects in 
the character of the Prussians; their swagger and their 
desire for importance abroad. Germany's determination 
to have "a better place in the sun"; her imperial ambi- 
tions in Eastern Europe and Asia; her colonies beyond 
the seas. Success of Bismarck's diplomacy. German 
possessions in Africa and the Pacific. The failure of the 
Kaiser's "mailed fist" diplomacy. The determination 
to proceed by conquest. General von Bernhardi's book 
Germany and the Next War. Germany infected by Prus- 
sian military swagger, and intoxicated by success in 
science, commerce, and war. 



CONTENTS 9 

Chapter V. The Quality of German Imperialism 

Success in science, commerce, and war does not prove 
any real capacity for colonization. In political sense and 
imperial method Germany is far behind the times. 
Analysis of the German Federal Government: its essen- 
tially despotic character. German experiments in colo- 
nization and imperial control. Her overseas empire. 
Success in minor matters, and failure in the greater. 
German emigrants go to the United States and the 
British colonies, not to German colonies; reasons for this. 
Germany's imperial experiments in Poland and Alsace- 
Lorraine; failure to elicit spontaneous loyalty in either. 
The last word in German imperialism is domination; it 
is essentially a military imperialism based upon force, not 
persuasion. 

Chapter VI. A Study in Contrast 

German forecasts concerning the probable difficulties 
in the British Empire on the outbreak of war; their 
complete falsification. The splendid loyalty of India. 
The whole-hearted co-operation of the self-governing 
Dominions. Reasons for the remarkable display of loyalty. 
Freedom the last word in British imperialism. Contrast 
between British and German imperialism in aim and 
method. 

PART III 
THE WAR AND CIVILIZATION 

Chapter VII. The Policy of Frightfulness 

King George's message to the Dominions at the 
beginning of the war. The attack on the continuity 
of civilization. Leading ideas in the political philosophy 



io CONTENTS 

of Berlin. Bernhardi's application of biological law to 
human development; what it involves. Huxley's repu- 
diation of it in 1893; his substitution of an "ethical" 
for the "cosmic" process in human development. Great 
Britain stands for the one in this struggle, Germany for 
the other. Germany has attacked the continuity of 
civilization by her years of preparation for world con- 
quest, by the abuses of a system of espionage in other 
countries, and by the low estimate she has placed upon 
human life. Her crimes against civilized feeling in 
Belgium and on the Atlantic. The application of the 
doctrines of Bernhardi by the German war-lords. 

Chapter VIII. National Individualism v. 
International Law 

Treitschke's teaching on the final authority of the 
State; its influence on the German mind. The doctrine 
of the almightiness of the State a challenge to the 
authority of the comity of nations and international 
law. It is also against the stream of tendency in the 
history of the past 400 years. Wolsey and the balance 
of power. The settlement of disputes by international 
arbitration in the last century. The influence of the 
comity of nations in the Hague conferences and 
conventions making for the supremacy of international 
law and agreement. The need for an international 
court of arbitration with sufficient force behind it to 
repress national aggression. 

Chapter IX. The Need of the Hour 

Too much made of the influence of finance and trade 
on Germany's capacity to carry on the struggle. Ordinary 
economic principles do not apply in the present condition 
of things, provided Germany can produce all she wants. 
Explanation and reservation. The maintenance of a 



CONTENTS 1 1 

fighting force the ultimate thing. Bulgaria's intervention 
unfortunate for the Allies; but there is still much greater 
reserve power in the allied nations than in the Central 
Powers; the great need is to organize these resources as 
speedily and effectively as possible. Will the democratic 
governments of the Empire rise to the greatness of the 
occasion as France has done ? 



Part I 

THE RESPONSIBILITY 
FOR THE WAR 




CHAPTER I 

THE WHITE BOOKS 

HERE are many questions con- 
cerning the conduct of this great 
war upon which experts in finance 
and the art of war are alone cap- 
able of expressing an opinion. 
But there are others of general and almost 
universal interest which any man of common 
sense and average intelligence may answer for 
himself after a study of the evidence already 
available. Where lies the chief responsibility 
for the war ? How is it likely to affect us as 
members of the British Empire ? What bear- 
ing has it upon the continuity and progress of 
civilization ? These are questions of first-rate 
importance. 

And, fortunately, in dealing with the first 
of them, evidence of the most valuable kind is 
available. Great Britain, Germany, Russia, 
Austria, and France have issued books contain- 
ing in some cases all, in others a part, of the 



1 6 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

correspondence that passed between the diffe- 
rent European powers up to the time of the 
outbreak of hostilities. This is original evi- 
dence, and every intelligent man or woman 
in the world may study it and make up his or 
her mind concerning the question of responsi- 
bility for the war. Members of the British 
Empire are naturally more directly interested 
in the British and German publications than 
any other, and the first thing that makes a deep 
impression on the mind of the student is the 
radically different way in which the two great 
powers have addressed themselves to the world. 
In the British White Book the British govern- 
ment published in full, and without comment, 
every message that passed between Sir Edward 
Grey and the continental powers. Not so the 
German government. They have published 
an argument defending their own position, and 
the argument is supplemented by a selection 
of the correspondence only. Not one of the 
messages that passed from Germany to Austria 
concerning the terms of the Austrian ultima- 
tum to Servia has been printed. The British 
White Book is an historical document; the Ger- 
man White Book is a lawyer's brief. The one 
takes the world fully and fearlessly into its 
confidence ; the other suppresses evidence 
and takes refuge in special pleading. The British 
government have treated the world at large 



THE WHITE BOOKS 17 

as they have been accustomed to treat their 
own people, through the medium of a free and 
outspoken press ; the German government 
have treated the world at large as they have 
been accustomed to treat their own people 
through an official and censored press. 

The methods are quite characteristic, and 
the difference, so far as it affects the honest 
seeker after truth, has not been lost upon 
neutral nations. In its issue for August 23, 
1 9 14, the New York Times says: "Sir Edward 
Grey puts all his cards upon the table face 
upward, and every inquirer into the truth of 
the negotiations for peace may acquaint him- 
self with every detail of Sir Edward's unre- 
mitting efforts to avert the disaster of war. . . . 
Germany presents a lawyer's brief, a special 
pleading in which, with such skill as its authors 
could command, the attempt is made to present 
her part in the negotiations that preceded war 
in a light most favourable to herself. Between 
these two an impartial world will judge". 

An impartial world has already come to the 
conclusion that Germany suppressed the evi- 
dence because she could not afford to let the 
world discover the truth for itself. 

But though the suppression of this corres- 
pondence between Germany and Austria 
leaves some gaps in our knowledge, there is 
evidence available in the publications by the 



1 8 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

other governments which helps to fill the gaps, 
and settle this question of responsibility for 
the outbreak of the war. 

To begin with, Germany incurred very 
grave responsibility by rejecting Sir Edward 
Grey's proposal to submit the differences be- 
tween Austria and Servia to the consideration 
of a conference. That proposal was both fair 
and practical. It was fair because in that con- 
ference two powers belonging to the Triple 
Alliance — Germany and Italy — were to be 
represented, while England and France were 
to represent the Triple Entente. Russia 
agreed to stand aside and abide by the deci- 
sion of the conference. It was therefore a fair 
proposal. And it was also a practical proposal. 
It was by means of a conference that the Bal- 
kan war, two or three years before, was pre- 
vented from becoming a European war; and 
Sir Edward Grey has stated publicly that it 
would have been easier to prevent this Austro- 
Servian dispute developing into a European 
war than it was to restrict the Balkan con- 
flict. England, France, and Italy agreed to 
take part in the conference; Germany declined, 
and gave as her reason that, as it was a quar- 
rel between Austria and Russia, Vienna and 
St. Petersburg should try to settle it between 
themselves; and in the event of their agreeing 
to do so she promised to "press the button 



THE WHITE BOOKS 19 

as hard as she could" at Vienna to make 
Austria more conciliatory about the terms of 
her note to Servia. For some time Austria 
remained inflexible, and the possibility of a 
European war passed into a probability. To- 
ward the close of July, however, Austria 
began to realize that Russia was in earnest, 
and that her obstinacy about the terms of the 
Servian note was likely to precipitate a Euro- 
pean crisis. She then signified her willingness 
to enter into conversation with the Russian 
government on the terms of the Austrian 
note, and on July 3 1 Sir Edward learnt " with 
great satisfaction " that discussion between 
Austria and Russia had been resumed. It 
was on the morning of that day that Sir 
Edward appealed to Germany to put forward 
"any reasonable proposal" for the preserva- 
tion of European peace, and promised to go 
to the length of saying that "if Russia and 
France would not accept it His Majesty's 
government would have nothing more to 
do with the consequences." But, instead of 
making any reasonable proposal, Germany, 
on that very night at 12 o'clock, sent a very 
unreasonable ultimatum to Russia demanding 
that she should demobilize on the Austrian 
as well as the German frontier, and do so 
within twelve hours. Even if it were techni- 
cally possible for any great country to cease all 



20 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

warlike preparation in so short a time (and 
that is doubtful), how could Russia be ex- 
pected to comply with such a peremptory 
demand when the Austrian forces were in the 
field, and no limit had been put by Austria 
to the advance of her troops into Servia ? 

That day, July 31, was one of the most 
fateful in the history of mankind. It began 
with promise of reconciliation between Austria 
and Russia ; it ended with an ultimatum from 
Germany that put an end to all negotiation, 
and made a European war inevitable. And 
Germany had promised to "press the button" 
at Vienna as hard as she could ! Was Ger- 
many really determined to force war while 
outwardly professing to urge Austria in the 
direction of conciliation ? If the correspon- 
dence that passed between Germany and Aus- 
tria had been published in the German White 
Book this question could be answered. But 
it has not, and so we are obliged to suspend 
final judgment on the point. But only final 
judgment; because, in the British White Book y 
there is one communication from Sir Edward 
Grey to Sir F. Bertie which contains a state- 
ment made by the Foreign Secretary in Italy 
which is most damaging to Germany and 
Austria. It is the message No. 152 in the 
correspondence, dated August 3, 19 14, and 
must be quoted word for word: 



THE WHITE BOOKS 21 

Sir, — On the 1 st instant the French ambassador made 
the following communication: 

"In reply to the German government's intimation of 
the fact that ultimatums had been presented to France 
and Russia, and to the question as to what were the in- 
tentions of Italy, the Marquis di San Giuliano replied: 
'The war undertaken by Austria, and the consequences 
which might result, had, in the words of the German 
ambassador himself, an aggressive object. Both were 
therefore in conflict with the purely defensive character 
of the Triple Alliance, and in such circumstances Italy 
would remain neutral.' " 

Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, 
and the Marquis di San Giuliano was the 
Foreign Secretary in the Italian government. 
The Marquis was therefore in a position to 
know more than the member of any govern- 
ment outside the Triple Alliance was likely 
to know about the conduct of Germany and 
Austria. The indictment offers a simple and 
reasonable explanation for the suppression of 
the correspondence from Germany to Austria 
before the outbreak of the European War, 
and it also helps us to understand why Ger- 
many issued her ultimatum to Russia on the 
very day on which Vienna and St. Petersburg 
had resumed conversations on the terms of 
Austria's ultimatum to Servia. The evidence 
is not absolutely conclusive against Germany; 
but the German authorities cannot complain 
if, with such evidence before him, the histori- 
cal student says that he finds it very difficult 



22 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

to avoid the conclusion that, while making 
professions of peace, she precipitated war by 
her unreasonable demands upon an ill-prepared 
Russia. If this conclusion is in any way 
unjust to Germany the remedy is in the hands 
of the German government. All they have 
to do is to publish the suppressed correspon- 
dence. 




CHAPTER II 

THE NEUTRALITY AND 
INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM 

UT the question that affects us 
most nearly is the responsibility 
for the declaration of war be- 
tween Great Britain and Ger- 
many; and here, happily, there 
is no want of evidence, and no ground for 
reasonable doubt. Whether Great Britain 
would have been forced into war by the deci- 
sion of France to support Russia is a question 
that need not detain us. It was the invasion 
of Belgium by the German army in defiance 
of treaties to which Britain herself was a 
signatory, that made the British ultimatum 
to Germany inevitable. The German govern- 
ment are of the opinion that Great Britain dealt 
a felon's blow by entering the war ; a hymn 
of hate has been composed, and children 
in the schools have been instructed to learn it. 
The British government are of the opinion 
that they would have betrayed vital national 
and imperial interests, and covered them- 
selves with everlasting dishonour, if Germany 



24 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

had been allowed to proceed without challenge ; 
and some of them are inclined to think that, 
on August 4, 1 9 14, in the conversation of Sir 
Edward Goschen with the German Imperial 
Chancellor, Great Britain established the 
greatest of all her traditions, and showed the 
civilized world the only way by which inter- 
national law could be made effective, and the 
more enduring peace of the world maintained 
in the future. How great is the difference 
between the psychological climate of Potsdam 
and Westminster! How different the sensi- 
tiveness of questions of national honour! 

The White Book shows this clearly enough ; 
but a brief outline of the history of Belgian 
neutrality and independence is essential to 
a full appreciation of the magnitude of the 
moral issue involved. In 1839 the Treaty 
of London was drawn up between Prussia, 
England, and France guaranteeing the 
neutrality and independence of Belgium in 
the interests of European peace, and Bel- 
gium was pledged to defend her neutrality 
with all her resources. In 1870 Germany 
became a nation, and then a treaty to 
the same effect was signed by Germany, 
England, and France. A treaty is the most 
solemn engagement by which nations can 
pledge themselves ; but Germany and England 
were pledged in another way. The great 
powers of the world met in conference at the 



NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM 25 

Hague in 1907, and agreed upon a number 
of resolutions. In the second of these it is 
set down that "belligerents are forbidden to 
move across the territory of a neutral power 
troops or convoys or munitions of war or 
supplies". England signed, so did Germany. 
But this does not end the responsibility so 
far as Germany is concerned. In October, 
1 9 10, the present Kaiser made a speech in 
Belgium in which he promised that the 
neutrality of the country , should never be 
violated by him. As late as April, 1913, 
Herr von Jagow, the present German Foreign 
Secretary, went down to the Reichstag, and 
made an official pronouncement upon the 
same matter: "Belgian neutrality," he said, 
"is defined by international treaties, and these 
treaties Germany will maintain." 

Yet, in the face of all these pledges and 
promises, confirmed as late as July 31, 19 14, 
by Herr von Bulow, the German minister in 
Brussels, the German government not only 
decided to invade France through Belgium, 
but the German Chancellor failed to under- 
stand why Great Britain could place so much 
importance on "a scrap of paper"! That 
last conversation between Sir Edward Goschen, 
the British ambassador in Berlin, and the 
German Chancellor, shows what a wide, deep 
gulf there is on questions of national honour 



26 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

between the opinions of the British and the 
German governments. Both Great Britain 
and Germany were pledged up to the hilt to 
defend the neutrality and independence of 
Belgium. At the last moment a supreme 
appeal was made by the King of the Bel- 
gians to the King of Great Britain to safe- 
guard the integrity of Belgium. How could 
Great Britain leave Belgium to her fate with- 
out covering herself with eternal dishonour, 
and endangering the future peace of the world 
by acquiescing in the monstrous doctrine 
that might is right? How could she have 
remained neutral without conceding that strong 
nations may trample at will upon the weak; 
that international agreements may be torn up 
when the time for testing them has arrived; 
and that the comity of nations must be at the 
mercy of individual national aggression? 

There is no need to deny that it was to 
Great Britain's material interest to defend the 
neutrality and independence of Belgium. That 
is obvious enough. Germany is an ambitious 
imperial power, and avowedly aggressive. 
Great Britain stands in the way of the realiza- 
tion of her ambitions; and there is no part 
of the continent from which such a power 
could strike so effectively at England as from 
the coast of Belgium and the north of France. 
If Germany had ports there, her attacks upon 



NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM 27 

British ships of war and commerce would be 
much more formidable than they are now; 
and raids by aircraft would be more frequent 
and dangerous. But it was not only or 
mainly because of these material safeguards 
that Britain went to war ; it was for more 
important reasons, involving her own honour 
and the welfare of civilization. When the 
German Chancellor argued that " for strategi- 
cal reasons" it was a matter of life and death 
to advance through Belgium, Sir Edward 
Goschen replied that it was a matter of life 
and death for the honour of Great Britain 
that she should keep her solemn engagement 
to do her utmost to defend Belgium's neu- 
trality if attacked. "That solemn compact," 
continued Sir Edward Goschen, "simply had 
to be kept, or what confidence could anyone 
have in engagements given by Great Britain 
in the future?" The British ambassador 
spoke as a man of business, as well as a man 
of honour. What great business would not 
be imperilled, if the man who held the posi- 
tion of supreme director were known to play 
tricks with his honour and his plighted word, 
when the time for testing them came ? It is 
well known that bills of exchange are drawn 
upon London, and why ? Not only because 
London is the biggest city in the world; but 
also because business men throughout the 



28 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

world have confidence in the integrity of the 
British merchant, and believe that he will do 
all he can to meet his obligations when the 
time for discharging them has arrived. Take 
away that conviction, and it is probable 
enough that the financial centre of the world 
will change to some other place. The 
possibility of carrying on large business trans- 
actions in the modern world implies a con- 
siderable measure of confidence between man 
and man. 

And the same is true ultimately of nations 
in their dealings with one another, especially 
in regard to the solemn obligations of a treaty. 
In time of stress and danger it is highly im- 
portant for any nation to be able to attract the 
support of allies, and her power of attraction 
will depend to a great extent upon advantages 
likely to be secured. Germany may make 
lavish promises, but what confidence can any 
nation have in her engagements after what 
she has done in Belgium? Are they not 
bound to ask: Will she keep her pledge when 
it is no longer convenient for her to do so? 
Germany offered the Boers their freedom if 
they would rebel; but how many of the Boers 
felt they could trust her after the violation of 
Belgian neutrality? Italy was offered bribes 
to remain neutral, but what value was set 
upon German promises by the Italians? 



NEUTRALITY OF BELGIUM 29 

It would have paid Germany better to 
have gone into France across the frontier 
between Luxemburg and Switzerland, not- 
withstanding the mountainous country and 
the strength of its fortifications. A decent 
respect for the opinions and feelings of man- 
kind is essential to the welfare of any nation. 
For these opinions and feelings Germany has 
shown contempt rather than respect, and 
already she has suffered for it by forcing 
Great Britain into the war and alienating the 
sympathy of neutral nations and especially 
of the United States. She is likely to suffer 
a good deal more when the heat of strife has 
given place to calmer reflection, and men 
have time to think about the true proportion 
of things in human life. Already the civil- 
ized world has had time to read the corres- 
pondence of the different governments, and 
think about the question of responsibility, 
and its mind is made up on two important 
points: that Great Britain and the Allies 
have secured a moral victory over Germany 
in regard to the responsibility for the out- 
break of this war; and that, if persuasion is 
to prevail over force as a means of settling 
disputes between nations in this world, trea- 
ties must be respected, and national indivi- 
dualism restrained by a decent respect for 
international usage, law, and treaty. 




CHAPTER III 

THE MILITARY DYNAMIC IN 
GERMANY 

STUDY of the correspondence 
will leave little doubt in the 
mind of any impartial student 
that the chief responsibility for 
the European war, as distinct 
from the quarrel between Austria and Servia, 
lies with Germany; and the history of the 
war since August, 19 14, shows clearly enough 
that the public opinion of Germany is behind 
the government. Nobody who has studied 
the history of Germany since 1870 will be 
surprised at this. The Germany of to-day 
is very different from the Germany of Beet- 
hoven, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Fichte; 
and the difference is due, for the most part, 
to the influence of Prussia in the schools, the 
universities, and, above all, in the army. An 
attempt will be made in the chapter on The 
War and Civilization to explain the nature of 
this influence in the development of the 
"German spirit"; it is sufficient to point out 




MILITARY DYNAMIC IN GERMANY 31 

here that the most outstanding feature in the 
history of Germany since 1870 has been the 
speeding up of the army both in numbers 
and efficiency in accordance with the "blood 
and iron" policy of Bismarck, which had been 
successful in the aggressive wars against 
Denmark, Austria, and France. The result 
was that, on the outbreak of the present war, 
Germany had an army of 5-I million men, 
well disciplined, and well equipped. She had, 
too, a system of railways admirably constructed 
for making the best use of her troops; and 
the transference of civil into military depart- 
ments was the work of a few hours. The 
organizing ability of the Germans is marvel- 
lous. Furthermore, since 1899 Germany has 
built the second strongest navy in the world 
at a cost of ^300,000,000, and powerful socie- 
ties have been formed to strengthen public 
opinion in its favour. Here are the outward 
and visible signs of that worship of force, and 
the will to conquer, which are the most 
striking characteristics of the German spirit 
to-day. The result of it all has been the 
generation of a military dynamic so powerful 
that no other force in Germany is able to 
compete with it. 

In modern Germany the belief in force 
has become an obsession, a form of madness. 
"The origin of the present conflict," says 



32 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

Professor Arthur Schuster, F.R.S., "may be 
found in the worship of material success 
which has maddened the German nation and 
plunged Europe into war". Germany is in 
the grips of a strenuous and strident material- 
ism, and the very branches of learning in 
which she maintains her pre-eminence are 
those that make for material strength. That 
way war was bound to come: it was only a 
question of time. 

And, when the war did break out, the 
ethics of the war party — the ethics of Prussia 
— became at once apparent. The German 
Chancellor went down to the Reichstag with 
a confession of wrong-doing, trying to justify 
the invasion of Belgium on the ground of 
"military necessity". What crime may not 
be justified on such grounds? The Prussian 
government had already established a reputa- 
tion for bad faith. The invasion of Belgium 
has set a seal upon it. Germany complains, 
as Bismarck complained long ago, of a want 
of trust on the part of other European powers. 
But what right has a nation to complain with 
the treachery of Frederick the Great, and 
even of Bismarck himself, written large in 
the diplomatic history of Prussia? And that 
Germany has been prussianized in this, as in 
other ways, became manifest in the invasion 
of Belgium contrary to treaty, convention, 



MILITARY DYNAMIC IN GERMANY 33 

imperial and ministerial promise. The reve- 
lations of the White Books, shocking as they 
are to any people who believe that knowledge 
and power without conscience are damnable, 
only prove to the student of German history 
that the German spirit has at last found 
expression in the way that was natural and 
inevitable. People who worship force as con- 
sistently and ardently as the Germans have 
done in the past 50 years need to have level 
heads, big souls, and a good deal of chasten- 
ing sorrow if they are to rise in practice and 
in theory above the conviction that might is 
right. 



Part II 

BRITISH AND GERMAN 
IMPERIALISM 




CHAPTER IV 

GERMAN IMPERIAL 
AMBITIONS 

OBODY will doubt the bravery 
and patriotism of the Prussian 
soldiers; they have proved it in 
the course of this war as they 
have proved it in the past. 
These are the qualities that militarism may 
be expected to develope, and they are great 
and valuable qualities. But militarism, when 
it is not rigorously controlled, has also great 
defects, and one of them is swagger. Bismarck 
understood his Prussians thoroughly, and 
published his opinions on their leading 
characteristics in his Reflections and "Reminis- 
cences. "We are a vain nation", he says; "we 
feel hurt directly we cannot swagger, and much 
even in regard to our pockets is forgiven and 
permitted a government which gives us im- 
portance abroad". This is notable. Germany 
has served the world in matters of education, 
and the world was grateful to Germany. She 
has made wonderful progress in matters of 
trade and commerce, and that was a legitimate 



3 8 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

way of exercising world-power. But with 
these achievements she was not satisfied. She 
wanted to swagger in the world as a ruling 
power, and dominate the countries of Europe 
politically and imperially. But for that she 
had shown no real qualification. She was, 
in fact, far behind some of the other nations 
of Europe in political sense and imperial 
method. She was not allowed to swagger, 
and she was hurt. She tried the diplomacy 
of the mailed fist, but it failed; and then, 
throwing diplomacy to the winds, she drew 
her mighty sword and challenged the nations 
of Europe to a struggle for World-power or 
Downfall. 

Germany went to war because, as her lead- 
ing men and politicians have so often reminded 
the world, she was determined to have "a 
better place in the sun". By this they meant 
that they wanted more territory in temperate 
regions of the globe, so that Germany's actual 
dominion might bear some more reasonable 
relation to her national strength, and her 
proved capacity for service. Outside Ger- 
many proper, Germany has possessions on 
her borders consisting of Alsace-Lorraine on 
the West and Poland on the East; and, in 
accordance with her traditional imperial policy, 
she has been trying to extend her influence 
eastwards through the Balkan States and 



GERMAN IMPERIAL AMBITIONS 39 

Turkey to the the Valley of the Euphrates 
and the Tigris. The great bar to her devel- 
opment in this direction has been Russia, and 
the strength of the pan-Slavish movement in 
the East. The failure of Turkey in the Bal- 
kan war put an end to any prospects of 
immediate success in that direction. 

But she has also been trying to build up 
an empire beyond the seas. Here the main 
trouble arose from the fact that as a nation 
she is only 45 years old, and, when she came 
upon the scene in 1870, nearly all the avail- 
able territory in the world had been taken up 
by older nations, especially Great Britain. 
England attained her nationhood in the middle 
of the thirteenth century, so did France; and 
in the centuries following they have been 
building up their empires slowly but surely. 
Germany had a chance of attaining to national 
unity 50 years before England and France; 
but owing to the world-wide ambitions of the 
Hohenstauffen Emperors on the one hand, 
and the feudal prejudices of her princes on 
the other, she lost it. So strong was the 
feeling of local independence that she did not 
become a nation till Bismarck welded the 
principalities together by blood and iron under 
the lead of Prussia in 1870. If Germany 
has not as good a place in the sun as she 
thinks she deserves, then the chief responsi- 



4 o REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

bility rests upon the shoulders of the princes 
who preferred their own limited sovereignty 
to national unity. 

After 1870 there was one legitimate way 
left for building up an empire beyond the 
seas, and that was by diplomacy. Bismarck 
tried this, and was successful. In the eighties 
of last century Germany secured Togoland, 
the Kameruns, German South-West Africa, 
German East Africa, and notwithstanding a 
vigorous protest from Queensland, a large 
part of New Guinea. These were considerable 
acquisitions, including territory amounting in 
area to about eight times the size of the 
United Kingdom. Notwithstanding Bis- 
marck's devotion to the policy of blood and 
iron for the consolidation of Germany, he 
was a reasonable, cautious diplomatist ; and, 
though he was never enthusiastic about a 
colonial empire for Germany, he managed to 
secure nearly everything that she holds be- 
yond the sea. The present Kaiser Wilhelm II 
has added hardly anything at all, and for 
very good reasons. He is a vain man, and 
is hurt when he cannot swagger. He has no 
international camaraderie. His one idea of 
impressing other nations has been to shake 
his mailed fist in their faces. In China, it is 
true, he succeeded in getting Kiao Chou; in 
Europe he succeeded only in outraging the 



GERMAN IMPERIAL AMBITIONS 41 

national self-respect of the great European 
powers, and uniting them solidly against him 
for purposes of mutual protection. He insulted 
France in 1905, Russia in 1908, England and 
France in 191 1, in the same way as he in- 
sulted Belgium in August, 19 14, by present- 
ing them with an alternative: compliance with 
his demands, or war. 

Indiscreet as such a policy was, it became 
in Germany almost inevitable. Diplomacy 
is a matter of bargaining, among democratic 
powers, by reason and arbitration, because 
such powers rely mainly on persuasion for 
attaining their ends; and the older nations of 
Europe have had time to learn that the way 
of persuasion is the better way. But Germany 
was not like the other nations of the West. 
She was very inexperienced, very military, 
and every year was becoming more military. 
This it is that explains the peculiar quality of 
German diplomacy under William II, who 
has paraded his military power in every dip- 
lomatic crisis, and made it his chief argument. 
It was a diplomacy that showed no respect for 
the good-will of other nations, and though it 
might succeed at the moment, it was bound 
to fail in the end by uniting self-respecting 
nations against Germany. 

It did fail, and the only way left for Ger- 
many to secure "a better place in the sun" 



4 2 



REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 



was by conquest; and that Germany had 
made up her mind for this there can be no 
reasonable doubt. The correspondence in 
the White Book proves that she intended to 
strip France of her colonies, and expected 
Great Britain to stand aside while she did so! 
But, besides this, the teaching in German 
universities and schools for the past thirty 
years has been preparing the national mind 
for something very ambitious in the way of 
expansion; and the character of this teaching 
may fairly be judged by reference to the 
book, Germany and the Next JVar^ written 
by General von Bernhardi. No doubt there 
was a large section of the people in Germany 
who would have repudiated many of the 
doctrines of Bernhardi concerning the ulti- 
mate source of national greatness; but in his 
views on German imperial expansion he 
voiced the opinions certainly of the army, 
and, in all probability, of the great majority 
of the German people. Bernhardi was an 
influential teacher in Berlin, a disciple of 
Treitschke, and a friend of the Kaiser. 
Events since August, 19 14, have shown 
that he knew very little about the British 
Empire; but they have also shown that he 
knew thoroughly well the mind of the Ger- 
man army, and that he was qualified to speak 
concerning both their aims and their methods. 



GERMAN IMPERIAL AMBITIONS 43 

And a study of his book leaves no doubt con- 
cerning the imperial ambitions of Germany. 
It is set down in the clearest language that 
there is one alternative before her: World- 
dominion or Downfall; and that the way by 
which she must get what she wants is war. 
For her might is right, and because that doc- 
trine is true of the struggle for existence in 
the animal world, it must also be accepted as 
true in the world of rational beings! The 
one thing Germany is determined to have 
is world-power; the only way left to get it is 
by conquest. One chapter discusses the 
"Rights of War", another the "Duty of 
War". With the correspondence of Euro- 
pean governments before us, and the conduct 
of the German army in Belgium, who will 
say that the views expressed in this book are 
not the views of the German government and 
the German army? 

To men and women who have breathed 
the atmosphere of Christian idealism, and lived 
under free political institutions, these asser- 
tions seem so unreasonable, so unfair, so 
material, so brutal, that they are driven to ask 
how can these things be among a people so 
enlightened as the Germans ? 

Perhaps the chief reason is that Germany 
has been suffering for some time from an 
attack of megalomania, or "swelled head". 



4+ REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

This is a disease to which the nature of the 
Prussian is peculiarly susceptible, as the ex- 
tract from Bismarck's Reflections at the be- 
ginning of the chapter indicates. But there 
are other reasons why Germans as a whole 
have become infected by it. Considering her 
age Germany has done remarkably well. She 
became a nation as a result of a series of 
successful wars against Denmark, Austria, and 
France. Since then she has made her way 
in commerce so successfully that one wonders 
why she thought it necessary to go to war at 
all, if world-wide power were the only thing 
needed. In branches of technical science that 
make for material strength she probably leads 
the world, if not in invention at least in appli- 
cation. In organizing ability she has proved 
herself both in peace and war: her civil service 
is the best in the world, and her transport 
service in war is marvellous. Her individual 
citizens have not the initiative or enterprise 
of the French or the English, but they are 
plodding, and they are thorough. Her pre- 
eminence in music, literature, and philosophy 
has not been maintained in recent years; but 
undoubtedly Germany is a great nation, and 
under wise direction has great capacity for 
world service. 



CHAPTER V 

THE QUALITY OF GERMAN 
IMPERIALISM 




ET all these things stand to Ger- 
many's credit. The question still 
remains : Do they prove that the 
German government are justified 
in setting out on a career of con- 
quest, which is to end in European hegemony, 
and world-wide dominion? 

No, they do not, and here lies the source of 
nearly all the mischief. It is one thing to 
exert world-wide influence through learning 
and commerce as Germany has undoubtedly 
done, quite another thing to impose upon 
Europe and the world a belated form of 
despotism, which strikes at the very founda- 
tions of democratic government, and is in- 
compatible with the growth and maintenance 
of national independence outside Germany. 
In all the progressive nations of the Western 
world, political institutions are rooted in public 
opinion, or the will of the people. Govern- 
ment is not only for the people, it is also by 




46 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

the people; and constitutional contrivances 
have been developed in the last two centuries 
to make public opinion effective. This 
is achieved mainly in two ways: by making 
the executive dependent upon, and responsible 
to, the people; and by keeping the military 
subordinate to the civil power. In Germany 
neither of these has been attained. There 
they have the Reichstag, which is a represen- 
tative assembly, but it does not control the 
executive. The responsible ministers who 
actually administer are appointed by, and 
responsible to, the Kaiser; and the Kaiser's 
authority rests, not upon public opinion, but 
upon the army and navy, over which he has 
unlimited authority, and which he can set in 
motion by a stroke of his pen. Even in 
legislation the Reichstag is, in practice, sub- 
ordinated to the Bundesrath or Federal 
Council, which consists of the delegates of 
the sovereigns of the different states of the 
empire, holds its meetings in secret in Berlin, 
and, with the consent of the Emperor, has 
power to dissolve the Reichstag. Supreme 
over all is the war-lord who claims to be 
God's vicegerent. 

Under a constitution such as this there is 
far less opportunity for developing political 
aptitude among the people than in any of the 
Western democracies. And German imperial- 



QUALITY OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 47 

ism takes its character from German politics. 

It is true that in matters of learning Ger- 
many has led the world, and in some branches 
still leads; but it is also true that in political 
sense and imperial method she is far behind 
the progressive nations of the world. The 
preposterous character of Germany's imperial 
ambitions cannot be fully understood unless 
this is realized. Having done well in war, 
commerce, and learning, she thinks it her duty 
to seize the territory of older nations and 
impose her will upon them! She admits that 
this will involve suffering; but she believes 
that it will be good for the world in the 
end. For the German people are a superior 
people; it is their mission under God's vice- 
gerent, the Kaiser, to reform a decadent 
age by the spread of German Ku/tur; and in 
order to do this effectively Germany must 
impose her rule upon Europe first, and the 
world next. Deutschland uber Alles^ that is her 
motto ! 

Germany could have influenced the world 
powerfully by her learning and her commerce 
without going to war, and that would have 
given her a place in the sun in the sense 
in which she already had it — the best 
sense; but that was not enough ; it did 
not satisfy her national vanity. She must 
dominate a great part of the world and 



48 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

impose her Kultur upon it. Having failed 
to do this by legitimate means, she let slip 
the dogs of war, and plunged civilization into 
the most awful catastrophe since the world 
began. This is the way in which Germany's 
megalomania has misled her. Her claims 
would be preposterous even if she were 
as pre-eminent for culture as she was in the 
days of Goethe, Kant, Beethoven, and Schiller. 
For the Kultur that makes for material 
aggrandisement she is far more distinguished 
than she was 50 years ago; but in the culture 
that makes for sweetness and light, and the 
advancement of the world morally and spirit- 
ually, she has gone back. For the past 30 
years she has worshipped physical and mate- 
rial power, and she has got it. Her pre- 
eminence in learning is now precisely of that 
kind that makes for material power: money, 
big guns, explosives, control over the powers 
of nature generally. 

All this high-flown talk in Germany about 
the spread of Kultur misleads nobody outside 
the Fatherland. Culture in the best sense — 
the love of what is true and beautiful for its 
own sake — flourishes as well, if not better, in 
small states than in great ones; and it restrains 
and subdues the passion for self-aggrandise- 
ment and domination instead of encouraging 
or justifying it. The imperial question has 



QUALITY OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 49 

nothing to do with culture at all, for there 
are no frontiers in learning. The only per- 
tinent question is this: Has Germany been 
so successful in her colonial and imperial 
history that she can claim even an abstract 
justification for seizing the territory of other 
nations who have had imperial experience 
extending in some cases over many centuries? 

No! Compared with other nations Ger- 
many has not been successful in colonization. 
Some measure of success she may claim in 
matters of detail; but, in matters of vital and 
far-reaching importance, she has failed both 
in method and results. 

Beyond the seas Germany has territories 
with an area eight times the size of the 
United Kingdom, where she has been brought 
into contact with primitive races. If German 
imperialism is likely to succeed with any 
people, it is among races just emerging from 
barbarism, who understand force, and have 
had no experience in rule by persuasion. 
How has Germany been getting on in Togo- 
land, German South-West Africa, East Africa, 
and New Guinea? In some respects well. 
She has a good system of wireless stations, 
she is efficient in matters of hygiene, and she 
is thorough in matters of education in the 
colonies as at home. She has, moreover, 
done something for the natives in raising them 



50 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

in the scale of civilization, though her methods 
have been characterized by a severity which 
would not be tolerated by the British govern- 
ment. In all these matters let Germany have 
the credit which she deserves ; it still remains 
true that, even in her empire beyond the 
seas, she has failed in the greatest matters. 
She has failed to attract to her overseas colonies 
any considerable number of settlers, even of 
German extraction. On this point statistics 
are absolutely conclusive. In recent years 
millions of Germans have left Germany for 
the United States of America, and hundreds 
of thousands have settled in the British colo- 
nies. How many Germans have gone to the 
German colonies beyond the sea, and settled 
there? At the outside calculation only 24,000, 
including the smaller possessions and Kiao 
Chou. It would be superfluous to offer any 
lengthy comments on these figures. They 
show, beyond all doubt, that when Germans 
leave their own country they avoid German 
colonies. One reason for this is that the 
German colonies are mostly in the tropics, 
and the climate is disagreeable; but that is 
not the only reason. When Germans leave 
Germany, they do so because they want to 
get away from military domination and swag- 
ger, and to breathe the atmosphere of a 
country that is governed by free institutions. 



QUALITY OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM 51 

In such countries they make good settlers, 
and they are content to make their homes 
there. In German colonies they would find 
the military as much in the ascendant as at 
home, and the swagger of the military officer 
even more objectionable. In Togoland, the 
Kameruns, German South-West Africa, Ger- 
man East Africa, and New Guinea there are 
17,000 Germans, and of these 2,500 are 
soldiers, and 700 are policemen ! And, as soon as 
a stripling puts an officer's uniform on his back, 
he swaggers it over all others in the colony, 
even though some of them may be men of 
industrial efficiency, who have done twenty 
times as much as he for the benefit of the 
colony. It is too early yet to pass final judg- 
ment upon German overseas colonization; but 
it is fair, even now, to say that it does not 
impress even German emigrants favourably. 

There is no need for reservation, however, 
in criticizing the attempts of the Germans to 
govern enlightened races that aspire to self- 
government, and feel the stirrings of nationality 
within them. How has Germany been getting 
on with Poland and Alsace-Lorraine ? In both 
places she has pursued a policy of repression, 
and set herself to crush out all in-born national 
aspirations. In both places the people are 
forbidden to speak their own language, and 
in both attempts have been made to settle 




52 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

Germans on the land. In Alsace-Lorraine 
there is a large population of Germans now; 
but in Poland the policy of land settlement 
has failed, notwithstanding the expenditure 
of 17 million pounds and the passing of an 
Expropriation Act through the Prussian Diet. 
The best test of success in the government 
of civilized people is the measure of sponta- 
neous loyalty elicited by the central imperial 
authority. Germany has failed to arouse it either 
among the Poles or the non-German people 
in Alsace-Lorraine; and failed so egregiously 
that, as a ruling power, she is more cordially 
disliked by the Poles than either Austria or 
Russia. The Poles still cherish their national 
aspiration, and they know, after a century of 
experience, that national aspirations and 
German imperialism are utterly incompatible. 



CHAPTER VI 
A STUDY IN CONTRAST 




ERE lies the essential difference 
between British and German 
imperialism. Great Britain has 
made her mistakes as an imperial 
power, and the greatest of all was 
made in trying to force the old colonial policy 
on America. But it is nevertheless true 
that, when she has erred, it has generally 
been on the side of generosity, rather 
than severity, in her dealings with civilized 
and uncivilized races alike. In the wave 
of loyalty which has swept from one end of 
her empire to the other in this great crisis 
she has her reward. It may be that in some 
cases there is impatience of British rule: 
it would be strange in so vast an empire if 
there were not; but, when it comes to a 
choice between British imperialism and German 
imperialism, the empire shows its mind with- 
out hesitation in word and deed. 

And this has been one of the most bitter 
disappointments for Germany since the 



54 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

beginning of the war. To her the British 
Empire was a loose agglomeration of states 
which would fall to pieces on the first shock 
of war. Ireland was on the brink of civil 
war. In India a holy war would shake British 
authority in the East to its foundations, and 
news of the preparation for it helped to fill 
the columns of the German press for months 
after the war began! Elaborate preparations 
were made for the invasion of South Africa 
in the belief that the Boers would strike a 
blow for independence when the first oppor- 
tunity came. As for the other Dominions, 
they were not worth considering from a mili- 
tary point of view, and, besides, their desire for 
independence of Great Britain would make 
them troublesome rather than helpful. Such 
was the German forecast before the outbreak 
of the war. 

But what are the facts? The Irish question 
was dropped for the time being, and large 
numbers of volunteers enlisted from both sides 
to defend the United Kingdom against the 
European menace. India rose almost as one 
man in defence of the Empire. In the early 
days of September 70,000 troops were on 
their way to fight in Europe. Every one of 
the 700 native princes offered personal ser- 
vices and the resources of their states for the 
war. From the utmost confines of India, from 



A STUDY IN CONTRAST 55 

Beluchistan, Chitral, Kashmir, and Thibet 
came offers of assistance; and even the wild 
and warlike Waziris offered to maintain peace 
and order on their borders, if it were found 
necessary or desirable to remove the govern- 
ment troops! 

The self-governing Dominions did not wait 
for any appeal from the British government. 
As soon as they realized the gravity of the 
situation they gave practical demonstration of 
their determination to support Great Britain 
with all their resources. In South Africa there 
was some trouble; but, despite that, South 
Africa affords the best example in any of the 
Dominions of the wisdom of British imperial 
policy. Thirteen years before we had been 
at war with the Boers, and it was a long and 
bitter war. Notwithstanding that, as soon 
as the insurrection began, General Botha 
took the field, and General Smuts directed 
affairs from headquarters. They succeeded 
not only in putting down rebellion in 
the territory of the Union, but also in the 
conquest of German South-West Africa, which 
now belongs to the British Empire. Could 
any finer or more striking tribute have been 
paid to the quality of British imperialism? 

And why all these ludicrous miscalculations 
on the part of German theorists? Simply 
because they do not understand. In the 



56 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

development of a sense of political freedom 
Germany is far behind the western democracies 
of the world. She has no idea how strong 
the passion for freedom is in the British 
Dominions, and how far their loyalty to the 
British Empire is due to that. It is quite 
true that in times of peace the bonds of British 
imperialism press as lightly as air; but that 
is precisely the reason why they are likely 
to prove as strong as steel in times of war. 
Germany has failed because she has tried to 
crush national aspiration. Great Britain has 
succeeded because wherever a people have 
proved their ability to govern themselves, and 
even before they have been able to pay their 
own way, she has encouraged national aspira- 
tion. The last word in German imperialism 
is domination, the last word in British impe- 
rialism is freedom. India knows this, the 
self-governing Dominions know it, the world 
knows it. 

Nor need we go any further than our own 
state and Commonwealth to find proof of it. 
The colony of South Australia was founded 
in 1836. Twenty years later the citizens were 
granted responsible as well as representative 
government: they not only had a democratic 
franchise, they had control over their minis- 
ters through Parliament as well, which the 
German people in their own country have 



A STUDY IN CONTRAST 57 

not attained to yet. And when the different 
states of Australia were ready to federate, 
and begin their history as a nation, the Prince 
of Wales was sent to inaugurate the Common- 
wealth. Taught by the loyalty of the Cana- 
dians after 1867, the British government had 
come to realize that nationality and British 
imperialism were not incompatible. This is 
the new imperialism which was making its 
way in the world, when, of a sudden, it was 
challenged by the crude military imperialism 
of Germany. 

The difference between the two empires is 
so great that they constitute a study in 
contrast. Germany's object is to germanize 
Europe and eventually the world, as she has 
tried to germanize Poland. To this end she 
has subordinated the Poles politically; for- 
bidden the use of their own language in 
public, and in the schools; and even tried by 
the Expropriation Act introduced into the 
Prussian Diet by a royal speech in 1907 to 
oust the Poles and plant Germans on their 
lands. It is not only the subjugation, but also 
the assimilation of Poland that is deliberately 
aimed at. This is indeed the only kind of 
imperialism that is to be expected of an auto- 
cratic government whose power is based upon 
unlimited control over the army and the 
navy. German imperialism affords no oppor- 



58 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

tunity for the development of the peculiar 
quality that distinguishes one nation from 
another. The struggle for supremacy so 
dominates political and imperial thought that 
the idea of a comity of nations or an associa- 
tion of free commonwealths has hardly any 
place in it at all. Prince von Btllow in his 
book on Imperial Germany makes this quite 
clear. "It is a law of life and development 
in history", he says, "that where two national 
civilizations meet they fight for ascendancy. 
In the struggle between nationalities one 
nation is the hammer and the other the anvil* 
one is the victor and the other the vanquished". 
Here is the thought that determines the bias 
of German imperialism. The aim is not 
unity, but uniformity ; not freedom, but 
domination. 

British imperialism aims at no such thing; 
its corner stone is self-government, and 
national imperialism is its highest and best 
expression. Each one of the self-governing 
Dominions is travelling along the road to 
nationhood, and no obstacle is placed in the 
way. Australians are no longer Englishmen 
beyond the seas; they are loyal subjects of 
his Majesty, but they are Australians. Over 
them waves their own flag, but above that is 
the Union Jack, and both can wave together. 
So it is in Canada, South Africa, and New 




A STUDY IN CONTRAST 59 

Zealand. Great Britain does not aim at 
anglicizing any of them. She so governs and 
superintends that each part is allowed to go 
on developing the quality that is peculiar to 
its own national life. And even South Africa 
knows this. When the trouble broke out there 
last year General Smuts wrote a letter to one of 
the malcontents in which he pointed out that, 
though the Boers were a conquered people 
in 1902, they were now free to work out 
their own national ideals under the British 
flag. 

Can there be any reasonable doubt concern- 
ing the relative merits of these two systems, 
either in respect of quality or results? German 
imperialism is anti-national in its character ; it 
shows no sufficient respect for the essential 
differences by which the various nationalities 
in the world are distinguished. It may attain 
to some measure of success among people just 
emerging from a state of barbarism, who know 
no other rule than the rule of force ; but 
among civilized people, and especially among 
people who have been trained under respons- 
ible government, and are conscious of national 
aspirations, it is bound to fail. Germany has 
no more chance of germanizing Europe than 
a forester has of turning larches, beeches, 
pines, and oaks into gum trees. Only a nation 
that is suffering from a violent attack of 



60 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

megalomania, and a profound ignorance of 
human nature beyond her borders, would have 
entertained any such ambition. Germany does 
know a good deal about the forces of nature 
that make for material strength; but of the 
forces of human nature that make for spon- 
taneous loyalty she knows very little. In 
scientific knowledge she may be pre-eminent, 
but in moral insight she is sadly deficient. 

In fighting for such an imperial ideal, 
Germany is fighting against one of the strongest 
forces in human nature. She is trying to 
impose an authority from without in defiance 
of the natural process of development from 
within. The only way by which she could 
could succeed in germanizing Europe is by 
exterminating all other European nations, 
and leaving only Germans; and, even then, 
nature would beat her in ioo years. For, 
when the Germans had spread over Europe, 
they would, under the influence of local 
interests and climatic difference, split up into 
nationalities again. That matter is settled by 
nature, not by Germany. Germany wants 
uniformity under despotic authority. Nature 
wants unity in variety. That is why British 
imperialism is so superior to the German. 
As Captain Mahan has so well said: "Of 
colonization, as of all other growths, it is true 
that it is more healthy when it is most natural. 



A STUDY IN CONTRAST 61 

Therefore colonies that spring from the felt 
wants and natural impulses of a whole people 
will have the most solid foundations; and 
subsequent growth will be the surest when 
they are least trammelled from home if the 
people have the genius for independent action. 
.... If elaborate system and supervision, 
careful adaption of means to ends, diligent 
nursing could avail for colonial growth, the 
genius of England has less of this systematizing 
faculty than the genius of France ; but England, 
not France, has been the great colonizer of the 
world. Successful colonization, with its 
consequent effects upon commerce and sea- 
power, depends essentially upon national 
character; because colonies grow best when 
they grow of themselves, naturally. The 
character of the colonist, not the care of the 
home government, is the principle of the 
colony's growth." If this is true in comparing 
French and British colonization, how much 
more might be written of the contrast between 
British and German imperialism: between an 
imperialism that seeks to germanize the world, 
and an imperialism that is based upon 
self-government, and encourages national 
development. 



Part III 
THE WAR AND CIVILIZATION 




CHAPTER VII 

THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFUL- 

NESS 

N his message to the govern- 
ments and people of his self- 
governing Dominions at the 
beginning of the war, the King 
stated, in words chosen, no 
doubt, after the most careful deliberation, 
that the peoples of his whole empire, at 
home and overseas, had "moved with one 
mind and purpose to confront and over- 
throw an unparalleled attack upon the con- 
tinuity of civilization and the peace of 
mankind". Apart from devotion to the 
free spirit of British institutions, there is 
probably nothing that accounts more for the 
extraordinary rally of the empire than the 
conviction that this is the language not of 
exaggeration, but of truth. It does not mean 
that Germany set out on this war of conquest 
with the deliberate intention of overturning 
civilization ; but it does mean that, if by any 
mischance Germany were to win, the con- 



66 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

tinuity of civilization would be broken, and 
the foundations of international peace im- 
perilled. 

The prussianization of Germany has not 
been simply a military process; it has been 
educational too. During the past thirty of 
forty years some of the most influential writers 
and teachers in Berlin have been inculcating 
ideas and principles which have prepared the 
national mind for the work of Prussian 
militarists, and given to German Kultur the 
peculiar quality whereby it may be distin- 
guished from culture as it is understood in 
other enlightened countries. 

Of these ideas or principles two have sunk 
deeply into the political and military mind 
of Germany, and they have already been 
applied in ways that have startled and shocked 
the civilized world. The one is expounded 
and elaborated with amazing candour by 
General von Bernhardi in his book Germany 
and the Next War^ viz., that the law of natural 
selection which prevails in the animal world, 
and is technically known as the struggle for 
existence, governs human development also; 
the other more particularly developed by 
Treitschke, that in the external society of 
man there is no authority higher than the 
state. The second is little more than a 
corollary of the first in its application to 



THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 67 

national life; and unfortunately, though 
Germany is the only enlightened nation that 
would have ventured to apply the law of 
natural selection with such brutal directness 
at this stage of the world's history, the Ger- 
mans have no monopoly of teachers who 
out-Darwin Darwin by insisting on the 
application of biological law to the evolution 
of human life. 

No doubt that theory does explain much 
in the life of primitive man; but it is utterly 
misleading to say that it has governed human 
development since the beginning of the 
Christian era; and to teach that it is a law 
that should and must dominate the lives of 
men, even in war, is tantamount to a denial 
of the essential differences between animal 
life and human life, and especially of the 
distinguishing qualities of man as an ethical 
and spiritual being. 

If such a doctrine is to go unchallenged in 
its application to human evolution, then 
assuredly might is right, as Bernhardi says; 
assuredly, too, the soldier must crush every 
feeling of humanity, and mercy and pity will 
count for nothing more than they have 
counted in Belgium; success will go to the 
strongest, the swiftest, and the most cunning, 
without any regard to the restraints of honour 
and morality; and small states like Belgium 



68 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

and Holland will have no more right to 
independent national existence than is conceded 
them by the forbearance of a strong and 
overbearing neighbour. It is high time that 
students of history followed the lead of 
Huxley, and raised their voices in clear and 
unmistakable tones against the inculcation of 
theories that give support to such monstrous 
ideas as these. 

For Huxley, though he is rightly called 
the armour-bearer of Charles Darwin, did 
protest against the application of this law to 
human development in the most emphatic 
way. In his Romanes Lecture at Oxford in 
1893 he repudiated the idea that "because on 
the whole animals and plants have advanced 
in perfection of organization by means of the 
struggle for existence and the consequent 
survival of the fittest, therefore men in society ^ 
men as ethical beings, must look to the same 
process to help them toward perfection". On 
the contrary, he affirmed that "Social progress 
means a checking of the cosmic process at 
every step, and a substitution for it of another 
v/hich may be called the ethical process". 

Precisely, that is what civilization means 
and has meant especially in the last 190a 
years, and that is why Great Britain has been 
forced into this struggle. Behind the teach- 
ing of Treitschke and Bernhardi lies the con- 



THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 69 

viction that "war gives a biologically just 
decision ", even though it begin in dishonour 
and be waged in defiance of the rules of the 
game. Behind the decision of the British 
government on August 4 lies the conviction 
that an ethical, not a brutal, process must 
dominate international as well as civic life; 
that force must be used not to trample upon 
but to uphold the honourable engagements 
and usages of civilized peoples in their deal- 
ings with one another. This it is which makes 
the present war a great landmark in the world's 
history. It is nothing less than a struggle to 
prevent a relapse into barbarous methods of 
settling disputes, and to preserve those prin- 
ciples, usages, and conventions which are 
bound up with the continuity of civilization. 
If Great Britain and the Allies win in this 
war, then the idea that an ethical process 
should be substituted for the brutal process 
of war in the evolution of human affairs will 
receive a sanction far more authoritative than 
it has ever had before, and it is possible 
enough that no nation will ever dare to do 
again what Germany has done in Belgium. 

But it will be a very different matter if 
Germany should prevail ; for, undoubtedly, 
the German authorities have waged war on 
land and sea in a way that shows they are out 
of harmony with the spirit of the age in which 



70 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

we live. Yet they are convinced that their 
way is the right way; and in this attitude of 
mind lurks great danger to civilization, for it 
has been a sinister, immoral, and brutal way. 

Most governments, even of the more 
advanced democracies, realize their responsi- 
bilities in regard to defensive warfare ; and 
some of them were prepared to act upon the 
conviction that under exceptional circum- 
stances, in which invasion was to be expected, 
aggressive warfare might be the only chance 
of defending successfully. But the idea of 
making elaborate preparations extending over 
many years for a war of conquest was so alien 
to the spirit of our times that responsible states- 
men in France and England, drawn together 
as they were by dread of it, were caught ill- 
prepared, and have been taken at a disadvantage. 

Even more shocking to many people 
than this cold-blooded preparation for 
world conquest have been the methods by 
which the military and naval authorities have 
carried on the war. They have revived prac- 
tices that are incompatible with the usage of 
civilized peoples, and destructive of any true 
confidence between nation and nation. The 
abuse of espionage is one of them. Nobody 
objects to an intelligence or even a secret 
service department. Every government wants 
to know how it stands with respect to other 



THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 71 

governments, and especially those from which 
danger is to be apprehended. But the Ger- 
mans have practised espionage in a way that 
is inconsistent with any ideas of national 
fair play. The history of the war in Belgium 
proves this ; and the charge is made, not only 
by writers of the belligerent nations, but 
also by neutral authors, such as Mr. Powell, 
who have written of what they saw in Flanders. 
Many of the Germans, who had lived in 
Belgium for years, made fortunes there, and 
had honours conferred upon them, acted as 
spies for the German army after the invasion. 
This is dirty work, and it is not the sort of 
thing that is likely to inspire the govern- 
ments of different countries with confidence 
in the loyalty of their German settlers. It 
will probably force many of them to find out, 
after this war is over, how far the existence 
of the Delbruck Act is compatible with the 
loyalty of settlers of German birth to the 
country of their adoption. Treachery is a 
difficult thing to deal with in times of war, 
and the results of it may be terrible. The 
Russian retreat from the Carpathians may 
find its true explanation in the treacherous 
destruction of munition factories in St. Peters- 
burg. 

But even the abuses of espionage have not 
shocked the feeling of the civilized world so 



72 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

much as the atrocities committed by Germany 
in Belgium and on the Atlantic in pursuance 
of the policy of frightfulness. In Belgium 
hostages have been taken and held responsible 
for the conduct of whole towns and cities; 
women, children, and old men have been 
slaughtered in droves, sometimes without so 
much as an inquiry, because of sniping, or 
the acts of individuals stung to madness by 
the destruction of their homes, or the viola- 
tion of those they loved; children have been 
roped together as screens for the German 
soldiery, and women made to stand all night 
on a bridge, exposed to the rigours of the 
climate, for the same purpose. Across the 
water, unfortified towns such as Scarborough 
and Whitby have been bombarded; the 
Falaba was sunk, and some of the passengers 
fired upon as they were trying to escape ; the 
Lusitania was torpedoed, and ioo neutral 
Americans sent to their doom with hundreds 
of British civilians. 

All this is contrary to convention, and some 
legally minded people talk as though it were 
the violation of convention that made it a 
crime. Not at all. Such outrages would 
have been crimes against civilization even if 
the Hague Conferences had never been held. 
It is impossible in a war of this magnitude to 
shield civilians altogether; but these are not 



THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 73 

accidents; they are the results of a policy 
deliberately adopted and pursued in order to 
terrorize Belgium, and the world at large, 
into submission. Prussians have long been 
of the opinion that peace-loving nations were 
decadent, and that the imminence of danger 
or of death would unnerve them, and throw 
them into panic. Hence these cowardly 
barbarities, which force the mind back over 
centuries to find a parallel in severity. The 
tendency of civilized peoples in the past three 
hundred years has been to formulate rules of 
the game in such a way that civilians, and 
especially women, children, and old men, 
should be kept out of this dreadful business 
as much as possible. The German military 
and naval authorities have dragged them back 
into it again, and they have done it deliberately. 
After the publication of Lord Bryce's 
report there can no longer be any reasonable 
doubt about this. That is their crime against 
civilization. 

And that is the chief reason why opinion 
in the great neutral countries of the world 
has gone so decidedly against Germany. The 
people of the United States are anxious to 
keep out of the war if possible; but 80 per 
cent, of them are heart and soul with the 
Allies, because they know that respect for the 
opinions and prejudices of civilization is part 



74 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

of the great cause for which they are fighting. 
President Wilson's protests came as a surprise 
to the missionaries of Kultur^ and were bitterly 
resented. "War is war," they persisted, and 
so, no doubt, it is; but there is a human as 
well as a brutal way of conducting warfare. 
In the relentless struggle in the animal world 
there are no rules of the game, and the Ger- 
man idea of war resembles that struggle to a 
degree that few enlightened people thought 
possible in this stage of the world's history. 
But it is just those rules of the game that 
constitute the difference between fair play and 
foul play, between civilized warfare and bar- 
barous slaughter; and this is what the people 
of the United States have been trying to 
impress upon the German mind. 

The policy of Rightfulness has been modi- 
fied to some extent, but not out of any real 
respect for the usages of civilization. Rather 
it is due to the realization that, in dealing with 
the nations of the West, it does not pay as well 
as the German war-lords thought it would, and 
also because so many German submarines are 
lying helpless wrecks on the bottom of the 
sea. It is not the continuity of civilization, 
or the substitution of an ethical process for 
the brutal process of war, that troubles Ger- 
many. She is out to win, and has made it 
clear from the beginning of the war that no 



THE POLICY OF FRIGHTFULNESS 75 

respect for the opinions and prejudices of 
mankind will prevent her from using any 
means that will enable her to snatch a victory. 
It is with her a question of what policy pays 
best in the attempt to "hack her way 
through ". The views of Bernhardi on war 
are the views of the war-lords of Germany. 
To them, as to him, might is right. What 
Bernhardi has preached in his book the war- 
lords have applied in their warfare on land 
and sea. It is the application of biological 
law in defiance of the rules of the game and 
of the moral force of civilization. 







m 



CHAPTER VIII 

NATIONAL INDIVIDUALISM 
V. INTERNATIONAL LAW 

OR is there any hope for a better 
state of things in the teaching of 
Treitschke concerning the final 
authority of the state. It is an 
idea that follows almost inevitably 
from the application of biological law to human 
life. Just as the comity of nations is naturally 
associated with arbitration and international 
law; so national individualism is associated 
with and implies war, and in the end a bellum 
omnium contra omnes. But such an individual- 
ism would mean a relapse into barbarism, and, 
to prevent this, civilized peoples have made 
use of law, convention, and organization inside 
and outside the state. 

Most people were of the opinion before 
the beginning of this war that international 
law, and the well established usages of civili- 
zation, to say nothing of conscience, were 
tribunals before which the conduct of any one 
state, however powerful, would be judged. 



INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW jj 

Not so the German military and political 
authorities, and not so a majority of the Ger- 
man people. In the whole range of Treitschke's 
political thought there is probably no one idea 
more forcefully and persistently advocated 
than the almightiness of the state. What it 
meant for him and for his disciples was that 
in the visible organization of man there is no 
authority higher than the state, and for that 
reason "a state cannot bind its will for the 
future in relation to another state. The 
state has no higher judge above it, and there- 
fore will conclude all treaties with mental 
reservation." 

The influence of such teaching as this on 
the treaty-violation that brought Great Britain 
into this war will be apparent at once. It is 
quite characteristic of Germany that, while 
claiming so much for nationality in her own 
interests, she has shown so little regard for 
the independence of Belgium. What Treitschke 
and the German political and military hierarchy 
really meant was that there is no higher 
authority in the external society of man than 
Germany. Nationality is a reality, one of 
the most stubborn realities of our time, as 
Germany is now learning to her cost; but, so 
long as human beings are dispersed in many 
nations, and recognize the supremacy of moral 
over physical force, national authority can 



78 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

never be final or supreme. National authority 
has a place, and a very important place, in 
the world to-day; but it may not usurp so 
high an authority as the law of nations, and 
the conscience of mankind. As well might 
a citizen argue that he has a right to put his 
own individual interests, or the interests of 
his profession, class, or union above the claims 
of the state. That means anarchy. 

In pushing the authority of a single state 
to such an unwarrantable extent Germany has 
deliberately set herself in opposition to the 
development of international authority on 
which the maintenance of an enduring peace, 
and the formal progress of civilization so much 
depend. The issue involved here is one of 
very great importance. It is nothing less than 
this: Are we ever to have such a thing as 
international law or not? Certainly, if the 
German idea of the almightiness of the state 
is to prevail, we shall not. But in the last 
400 years history has been turning out the 
raw material of international law, and Germany's 
reactionary protest only means that the finished 
product was so near completion that war, 
Prussia's chief industry, and the source of so 
much of her own material power, would soon 
be under its control. 

The movement toward the attainment of 
some definitely constituted international au- 



INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 79 

thority in Europe that would gradually 
supersede war was begun by Wolsey in the 
reign of Henry VIII, when he launched the 
idea of the balance of power. By this means 
a comity of nations was arranged to repel the 
aggression of any one state that was strong 
enough to imperil the peace of Europe. 
There is no doubt that it worked well, and, 
because of her "splendid isolation ", particu- 
larly well for England. It meant very often 
that she with her well defined sea-girt frontiers 
held the balance of power; and anybody who 
has read Bernhardi's book can see that this is 
the reason why Germany is determined to 
put an end to it by insisting upon the 
almightiness of the state. That it has made 
for the peace of Europe, and for the continuity 
of civilization, does not matter to Germany. 
She has made up her mind to dominate 
Europe, and, if the comity of nations and the 
balance of power stand in her way, they must 
go, and especially if England, the great world- 
power, derives more advantage from them 
than she. 

And so, too, must international convention, 
arbitration, and law, for they belong to the 
comity of nations, and, during the nineteenth 
century, were winning authority not only in 
Europe but also in the world at large. It 
was a development which all the democratic 



80 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

nations of the world favoured, and even some 
of the more military nations like Russia and 
Japan. To all nations with any genuine 
pacific inclinations, and any real regard for the 
progress of civilization, it was bound to com- 
mend itself. England and France settled 
their differences about Egypt, Central Africa, 
and the Newfoundland fisheries by arbitration; 
by the same method England and the United 
States settled their disputes about the Cana- 
dian boundary and Behring Straits. So well 
established had this method of settling dis- 
putes become that, by the end of the century, 
responsible statesmen in different countries of 
the world had begun to discuss the possibility 
of the erection of an international court of 
arbitration. This court was to consist of 
representatives of the nations of the world, 
and its business was to be the settlement of 
international disputes by reason instead of 
war. President Roosevelt, when in office, 
tried to prepare the way for it, and he is 
working for it still. There is probably 
nothing more characteristic of the administra- 
tion of Sir Edward Grey than the work he 
has done to prepare the mind of Europe for 
such a tribunal — a tribunal which shall have 
the power to say to any aggressive country: 
Show us your ultimatum; if we believe that 
your demands are just we will support them; 



INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 81 

if not, and you still persist in war, it is also 
war against the nations here represented. 

This is one of the great issues involved in 
the war. This is what England the champion 
of the comity of nations is fighting for, and 
what Germany the champion of national in- 
dividualism is fighting against. The issue is 
so tremendous that it involves nothing less 
than a choice between the continuity of 
civilization and a return to the crudest form 
of despotism. It is a struggle between the 
methods that make for the rule of reason and 
persuasion, and methods that make for the 
rule of force. 

And what has the progress of civilization 
consisted in, if not in the gradual substitution 
of reason for force in the settlement of 
individual and national disputes? Individual 
liberty within the state is rendered possible 
because individual aggression is restrained by 
law. In like manner national freedom can 
only be secured by making international 
brigands amenable to international law. What 
security will Belgium or any other small state 
ever have against a mighty power like Ger- 
many, if there is to be no external authority 
in the society of men higher than the state? 
Germany has shown that she has no sufficient 
regard for the settled opinions and feelings 
of civilization, and Germany is a mighty power. 



82 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

There lies the danger, and, if the continuity 
of civilization is to be safeguarded some 
external authority must be established with 
sufficient power to make international law as 
effective in the relations between nation and 
nation, as ordinary law is in the relations 
between man and man. Germany is trying 
to do essentially the same thing in the world 
at large as the feudal brigand of the Middle 
Ages with his powerful following did within 
the state. She must be brought under control 
in the same way as he — by law. 

That is what England is fighting for, and 
if ever such a desirable object is to be attained, 
it will have to be won by fighting; it will not 
come by talking and protesting. America 
has done something to expose the inhumanity 
of Germany's conduct by her official notes, 
and her splendid efforts to relieve the suffer- 
ings of the Belgians. But it is well for 
America, and for civilization, that there are 
other nations in the world prepared to support 
their protests by armed force. America is 
humanitarian in her sympathies, and her ideals 
of government are higher than those of 
Germany; but she has overlooked the fact 
that idealism must be supported by force, if 
it is to be effective at this stage of the world's 
history. Germany by her strength and pre- 
paredness has taught us that; so has America 



INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 83 

by her unpreparedness and want of military- 
efficiency. 

When a nation of 100,000,000 people after 
hearing that its neutral subjects are sent 
to their doom in the waves of the Atlantic 
tells the world through its chief executive 
officer that there is such a thing as being too 
proud to fight only one reflection is possible, 
viz., that America does not fight because she 
is not prepared to put her protests into effect. 
And no further evidence is needed to prove 
that, if ever an international court of arbitra- 
tion is established, it must differ in one 
all-important essential from the Hague tribu- 
nal: it must be backed by military and naval 
force sufficient to make its decisions effective 
against the defiance of any one power, however 
strong that power may be. The world is not 
done with force yet, and never will be till the 
millennium is reached. The frail man need 
not fear the strong now-a-days in a court of 
law, provided he can convince a judge and 
jury that his cause is just. That is because 
there is a force behind the law which is 
stronger than the force that any one aggressive 
individual can command. We have become 
so habituated to the rule of law that there is 
little need in a civilized country to parade the 
force behind it; but it is there, or at least it 
should be there, if the state hopes to avert 



84 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

anarchy, and to survive. And so it must be 
in regard to this international court of arbi- 
tration. Some people talk as though the 
establishment of such a court would make 
armies and navies superfluous. No j ustiflcation 
can be found in history for any such optimism. 
Reason is better than force, but force is more 
ultimate than reason, and where there is not 
force enough to maintain the law, unscrupulous 
men will seize the opportunity to defy it. 
So will unscrupulous nations, where there is 
not force enough to restrain international 
brigandage. 

Germany has used her mighty power to 
crash through treaty-obligation and promise. 
That is a barbarous use of force, and the only 
way to prevent its recurrence is to have a 
power greater than Germany's which will be 
used to uphold treaty-obligation and promise. 
That is the only practical way to make 
international law effective; and that is why 
Great Britain has thrown in her lot with 
France and Russia in this war; and, if ever 
anything like an enduring peace among the 
nations of the world is to be attained, that is 
the only way to get it. Nobody had a right to 
complain of Germany having a strong military 
force, for it is the duty of every nation to 
prepare to defend itself, and Germany is in a 
difficult position geographically. But her 



INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 85 

ambitions were not limited to defensive pre- 
cautions. She had designs on the colonies 
of France, as the White Book shows; and all 
that speeding up of the army and navy is 
inexplicable except on the assumption that 
she had made up her mind for world-power, 
by conquest, and was willing to risk downfall 
in the event of failure. 

Germany has in fact gone the way of 
nearly all individuals and nations who have 
pursued material ambitions with success, at 
the expense of such qualities as make for 
sweetness and light, and a reasonable respect 
for the feelings of others. The culture of 
Goethe and Beethoven and Kant gives place 
to the Kultur of Nietzsche, Treitschke, and 
Wilhelm II, and in religion the worship of 
valour takes the place of the worship of 
Christ. The harvest has come, and she is 
reaping to-day what she has sown with so 
much care in the past. The crop is not only 
tares. In physical and material strength 
Germany is prodigiously powerful, and the 
patriotism of her citizens must command the 
admiration of all fair-minded men. If the 
inculcation of the almightiness of the state 
has made Germany an Ishmaelite among the 
greater and more civilized nations of the 
world, it has also taught the German people 
themselves to sacrifice everything for what 



86 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

they conceive to be the good of Germany. 
It would appear that masses of men in 
macedonian phalanxes are willing to go to 
almost certain death for the Fatherland. 

Pity it is that the Fatherland is not en- 
gaged in a nobler cause, and that so many 
lives should be sacrificed for material ambi- 
tions, and impossible ideals! For no consi- 
deration of the energy and self-sacrifice of the 
German soldiers can alter the fact that Ger- 
many is playing the part of an international 
brigand, and that, in the conduct of the war 
on land and sea, she has already established 
traditions so dishonourable and brutal that no 
amount of heroism can atone for them. What 
is the better class of German likely to think 
50 years hence as he looks back over the past, 
and sees the Kaiser trampling on the word of 
his countrymen, pledged solemnly in treaty, 
and reaffirmed by convention and ministerial 
promise? What is he likely to think as he 
reflects on the condition of Belgium and its 
people, dragged into this war for no other 
reason than that they preferred their political 
freedom to material advantage, and fidelity to 
the word that they, too, had pledged in the 
treaties that guaranteed them their neutrality 
and independence? And what, again, is he 
likely to think of the conduct of the German 
naval authorities who, after sustaining reverses, 



INDIVIDUALISM V. LAW 87 

abandon legitimate warfare on the sea to at- 
tack passenger boats, and even hospital ships? 

Germany is no doubt relying on the success 
of her arms to minimize the effects of these 
outrages on the decencies of civilized warfare; 
and if^ by any mischance, she were to come 
out of this war successful, much will be for- 
given her by those who have never really 
risen above the conviction that might is right. 
And there are many such folk in the world, 
though they are not as numerous as Germany 
thinks. The heart of the world is after all 
soundly moral. Civilized people believe in 
world-right far more than in world-might; 
and, though arrogance may be endured for a 
time through the weakness or fear of its 
victims, it breeds lasting feelings of resent- 
ment in the heart of man. 

From the very commencement of this 
war the German army leaders threw to 
the winds such high considerations as 
honour, humanity, and fair play. They 
made it clear to the world that they were 
going to act up to the convictions of 
Treitschke, that they were a law unto 
themselves, that the soldier must crush every 
feeling of humanity, and that success must 
be attained by any means, fair or foul, just as 
it is attained in the struggle for existence in 
the animal world. If it had become clear to 



88 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

Germany that the policy of frightfulness was 
an undoubted success, there is every reason 
to believe that she would have stopped at no 
atrocity. She will not be restrained by any 
considerations of humanity. The only way 
to restrain her is to show that frightfulness 
does not pay. And this can only be done 
if the decent opinion and prejudices of civili- 
zation are effectively organized against her. 
What the world wants is an international 
court of arbitration powerful enough by 
reason of the force it can command to keep 
national individualism within due bounds; 
and, if we do not get it in the near future, 
then, in one very important respect, this war 
will have been fought in vain. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE NEED OF THE HOUR 




HE German people are wonder- 
fully well organized for purposes 
of war. This is only to be 
expected, for Germany has been 
prussianized in the last 50 years, 
and Prussia's chief industry has for long been 
war. It is only now that the nations of Europe, 
and the world at large, are beginning to realize 
the full extent of Germany's material and 
physical resources, and many economists have 
yet to learn that a nation that is determined 
to live on its own labour, and produce what 
it wants within its own confines, is not beaten 
even if it should lose all its money and all its 
outside trade. The people who cannot do 
without money in this world are those who 
are dependent on others for supplying their 
wants; and this is true of nations as well as 
individuals. Those who do their own work 
can get along with very simple finance. 
Germany's oceanic trade has ceased, and all 



9 o REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

her ships, except a few in the Baltic, are shut 
up in German ports, or interned elsewhere. 
If there is any commodity Germany cannot 
produce which is indispensable for the 
manufacture of weapons and explosives, she 
will suffer, provided she cannot find a sub- 
stitute; and it will become increasingly 
difficult for her to supply the needs of her 
vast armies on all fronts, especially as our 
submarines are now sinking her ships in the 
Baltic Sea. But if Germany can produce 
what she wants within her own territory, 
then you may destroy her commerce, and 
shatter her financial credit in the outside 
world, but she will still go on fighting, and 
may still go on as long as she has men to fight 
with. There has been far too much talk 
about crushing Germany by reducing her to 
a condition of financial bankruptcy. It is 
true that you may force a nation to alter its 
economic system by crippling its trade and 
finance; but if it can live of its own, and is 
willing and able to do all its work independent 
of the outside world, you will only beat it by 
capturing or destroying its armies. 

When it comes to a struggle such as the 
one in which we are now engaged, the 
ordinary maxims of political economy do not 
apply, and it is just as well to face this fact 
and all that it means at once. One thing it 



THE NEED OF THE HOUR 91 

means is this, that if Great Britain is depen- 
dent upon the outside world for many of her 
commodities, and Germany is self-sufficing, 
then, despite all that British gold can do, and 
despite all that the British fleet can do, 
Germany will hold out until the last British 
sovereign is spent, provided she has men 
enough left to fight with. Money is, after 
after all, only a universal means of exchange ; 
behind that are the real sources of wealth: 
the labour, material, industrial leaders, and 
the will to conquer. Germany has the labour, 
the leaders, and the will to conquer. If she 
has also the cotton, and the copper, or 
suitable substitutes, then the issue of the 
struggle will depend upon the number and 
efficiency of the men that either side can put 
into the field and keep there. 

It is precisely for this reason that the 
advent of Bulgaria on the side of the central 
powers has made the position a much more 
serious one for the Allies. The sudden acces- 
sion of a force of 300,000 men at a critical 
stage of the war is of enormous impor- 
tance. For, although there are great reserves 
of men in the British Empire and Russia to 
draw upon, it is impossible to equip them at 
once and make them efficient fighters, and 
much mischief may be done before the Allies 
have time to cope with the additional forces 



92 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

at the disposal of the enemy. If Greece and 
Roumania could make up their minds to 
come in on the side of the Allies Bulgaria's 
decision might speedily turn out to be a 
blessing in disguise. But they are probably 
thinking as hard about the Russian retreat as 
Bulgaria has done, and, until the prestige 
lost there and in the Dardanelles has been 
recovered, it is not likely that they will care 
to declare themselves openly against Ger- 
many. The instinct of self-preservation is 
strong, and so is the influence of German 
dynastic sympathies. But the present incon- 
venient situation would not have arisen if the 
military forces of Russia and Great Britain 
had been organized in anything like the same 
thorough-going way as those of Germany. 
It is easy to be wise after the event, and see 
this now, and it is unfair to indulge in whole- 
sale recriminations. Victory has not come 
as soon as the Allies thought it would, and 
there are many reasons why. Great Britain 
is a naval, not a military, power, and Russia 
was not prepared for war; very few people 
knew that Germany was as strong as she is; 
still fewer believed that it would be necessary 
for Great Britain and Russia to draw upon 
their reserves to the utmost limit in order 
to defeat the Central Powers; the fighting 
strength of Turkey was altogether under- 



THE NEED OF THE HOUR 93 

rated, because of her failure in the Balkan 
war; and too much reliance was placed upon 
the strength of the Panslavist movement in 
Austria-Hungary and the Balkan states. 

But the gravity of the situation is suffi- 
ciently apparent now; and, if Germany and 
Austria should achieve any further successes, 
the prestige of the Allies will so far be 
impaired that wavering states will be inclined 
to range themselves on the side where they 
think safety lies. At present the issue is 
hanging in the balance, though the reserve 
of strength is far greater on the side of the 
Allies than on that of the Central Powers. 
Great Britain has right on her side, and 
strength in reserve. Germany entered the 
war with a confession of wrong-doing, but 
her strength was organized with marvellous 
efficiency from the beginning. One thing, 
and one only, now stands between the Allies 
and success: the want of a thorough-going 
and effective organization of all their re- 
sources. If Germany is to be conquered, if 
right is to prevail over might, then the 
government of Great Britain must organize 
the forces of the United Kingdom and the 
Empire far more effectively than they have 
done hitherto, and they must do it speedily. 
Never had nation a greater or nobler cause 
for taking up arms; freedom, honour, the 



94 REFLECTIONS ON THE WAR 

integrity of the Empire, the continuity of 
civilization are at stake. Time after time we 
have been told this by our leaders, and there 
is every reason to believe that it is true. 
Much has been done by Great Britain and 
the Empire — far more than most people 
thought would be necessary at the outbreak 
of the war. The British navy has fully 
maintained the traditions of the past, and the 
imperial armies have done bravely in Africa, 
Flanders, and the Dardanelles; but more 
men are needed, and the question of the hour 
is: How are they to be raised, organized, 
and equipped efficiently and speedily? This 
is not the place to conduct an inquiry 
into the relative merits of voluntary and 
compulsory service. The question of the 
adoption of the one or the other is a political 
question, and will be decided on grounds of 
expediency. The only people qualified to 
express an authoritative opinion are the cabi- 
net ministers in the governments of the 
United Kingdom and the Dominions. With 
them lies the responsibility, and their respon- 
sibility is great! If the authority of inter- 
national law is to be vindicated; if the peace 
of Europe and the world is to be established 
on more enduring foundations, then forces 
stronger than those of the Central Powers must 
be raised, organized, and equipped without 



THE NEED OF THE HOUR 95 

delay. Will the democratic governments 
of the empire rise to the greatness of the 
occasion? If not, then once more in the 
history of the world, democracy, the highest 
form of human government, will have proved 
itself unequal to the demands made upon it 
in the hour of danger. Germany will emerge 
from the struggle unbeaten, and there will 
be military discipline enough for a hundred 
years to come. 



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